International Incident
by peroxidepest17
Summary: Gustavo has important things to do and BTR doesn't understand Japan.


**Title:** International Incident  
**Universe: **Big Time Rush/JE (KAT-TUN)  
**Theme/Topic: **BTR meets Jin?  
**Rating:** PG-13  
**Character/Pairing/s:** BTR, Gustavo, Kelly, Griffin, Johnny-san (with some one-sided CarlosxJin)  
**Warnings/Spoilers:** Crack, randomness, stupidity.  
**Word Count:** 1,950  
**Su****mmary:** Gustavo has important things to do and BTR doesn't understand Japan.  
**Dedication:** written for pipsqueaks' REALLY LATE birthday request? Uh.  
**A/N:** This is lame and has no coherence. Which I guess makes sense for most of my fics with Jin in them.  
**Disclaimer:** No harm or infringement intended.

* * *

The agreement goes into effect on a warm Saturday evening in mid-June under the lights of the famous Los Angeles skyline.

"BEST BEHAVIOR," Gustavo yells at them in the car outside Club Nokia before the show. "The guy we are meeting with is a _guru_. He's turned the art of boy band management into the Ford assembly plant of Japan."

Carlos and James blink and try to figure out what that means.

Logan coughs and raises his hand. "Historically that reference works but in a modern context, American car companies really aren't doing that w…"

Gustavo makes the SHUT UP motion with his hand by clamping his fingertips together in Logan's face. "NO. BAD DOG. HEEL."

Logan's mouth snaps shut. He looks affronted.

Gustavo doesn't care. "AND SO," he continues, while Kelly nods emphatically at his side, "You don't talk. You don't move. You smile and look pretty, and let me discuss things with Johnny and Fujisaki LIKE PROFESSIONALS. Just sit back and enjoy the concert and maybe you mutts will learn what purebred show animals are SUPPOSED to look like on a stage."

Kendall moves to protest. Gustavo's SHUT UP motion snaps dangerously close to his nose this time.

Kendall ignores it. "Gustavo, how is watching a _one person show_ going to help _our band_ become a better _band_?" he demands.

Gustavo snorts. "Uh, honestly? I don't know if you guys can be a better band than you already are."

The boys look pleased.

"That _WAS NOT_ a compliment," he clarifies, as they finally pull up to the backstage parking lot. "Now REMEMBER. Be quiet, be good, and MAYBE I can get you guys a wacky commercial spot overseas if Johnny lets us into the market without our sides having to go nuclear first. We don't want it to be like it was for the Koreans."

James instantly goes for the compact when one of his I-am-a-celebrity keywords gets used in a sentence. "Soon," he tells himself, "the world will know all this." He wiggles his fingers in his face; somewhere in the distance, an electric guitar riff rips through the air explosively.

"What kind of commercial is it?" Kendall asks, also excited but less power-chordy than his taller friend about it. He's been on youtube. He knows what Japanese commercials look like. They're weird and cause seizures.

"Yeah, so far it's dead even between the human flavored potato chips and the manufacturers of the two-hole body pillows," Kelly chimes in helpfully.

"_Human_ flavored potatochips?" the boys ask. Carlos puts his helmet on instinctively.

Logan frowns too. "Why would you need holes in your pillows? Specifically two?"

Kelly is the one to make the SHUT UP motion next. "Just hope the human chips win," she explains firmly, before getting out of the car. "Now let's go."

The boys shrug at each other.

Gustavo shoves them out.

* * *

The show starts at six.

Up in the VIP section seats, Gustavo plies Johnny with drinks, the bodyguards hold Fujisaki upright in his chair, and Griffin makes sure the Japanese caterers walk by every few minutes with fresh hors d'œuvres to keep everyone happy. Meanwhile, down in the front row orchestra, Kelly is standing right behind the boys, clutching a fan with weird squiggly symbols written on it and a pen with a giant plastic light-up heart at the end that looks like something Katie would have played with when she was zero-to-six-months old, before she was cognizant enough to know when some things were too lame for words.

But maybe Kelly isn't cognizant right now; she seems kind of manic, a little too bright-eyed and anticipatory. Logan turns over his shoulder to regard her for a moment before commenting surreptitiously to Kendall about how she looks like she's had one too many human flavored snacks herself lately.

After that the lights go down, and some idol named Jin hits the stage two seconds later, flanked by some ridiculously swively backup dancers and a whole lot of glitter.

Several things happen at that point.

James, for the first time in his life, experiences real hair envy.

Logan wonders how far away they are as a group from having their own swively backup dancers.

Kendall's right eardrum gets blown out by the inhuman shrieking sound Kelly makes suddenly, _right beside his face_.

And Carlos falls in love.

* * *

"That _is not_ a girl," Logan points out during the talk portion of the show. "I know he kind of dances like one and might be wearing women's clothing, maybe, but…" he trails off and makes a vague motion towards the stage with his hand. "Definitely a guy."

"We're going to get married and have seven kids," Carlos flutters, obviously not listening.

"What?" Kendall asks, because they're standing to the right of him and while he can see their lips moving, right now all he can hear on that side is a high pitched buzzing.

"Glorious, glorious volume," James sighs, from Kendall's left, and that doesn't make any sense at all.

"Japanese is such a beautiful language," Carlos adds.

Logan looks incredulous. "Uh, pretty sure _he's_ speaking English, Carlos."

"Uh, don't be stupid, Logan. English doesn't sound like that," Carlos snorts, derisively. "_She's_ speaking _Japanese_."

Logan shoves him. "English! And. He's. Not. A. Girl."

Carlos shoves him back. "Japanese. She."

"Not!"

"Is!"

"Not!"

"Is!"

They start slapping each other. "You're just jealous of our love!" Carlos shouts.

"I'm boggled by your _inability to see the obvious_!" Logan dodges a swipe at his face and ends up getting hit in the head instead. "OW! _STOP THAT_."

"_You_ stop it!"

"Seriously guys, _what_?" Kendall practically shouts. He tries to turn his left ear towards them, but it's very near impossible considering the close press of bodies in the pit and the dangerous angles Kelly keeps waving that pen-heart thing in, trying to get Jin's attention.

"I SAID, GLORIOUS, GLORIOUS VOLUME!" James repeats to him helpfully. And kind of loudly. In his good ear.

Kendall winces and rubs it. "Okay, _ow_."

Meanwhile, on stage, Jin disappears for a bit, leaving the very swively backup dancers and the house band to entertain the audience.

The Japanese idol returns five minutes later in something that looks very unmistakably like a skirt.

Logan and Carlos stop slapping each other.

Carlos whoops in triumph. "See!"

Logan sputters. "This proves nothing! Maybe it's just a Japanese thing!" he insists. "I mean, _I _wore a dress once too!"

"Yeah but _you_ didn't look that good!"

"TAKE THAT BACK!"

They start hitting each other again.

"Tell them that's not a skirt. That's a hip-scarf," James murmurs to Kendall, clinically.

"_What?_" Kendall asks, around two ringing ears now.

"OH MY GOD I LOVE YOU!" Kelly shrieks up at Jin on the stage, and accidentally hits Kendall in the head with her heart-pen thing. Again.

Kendall sighs.

* * *

Back up on the VIP balcony, Gustavo grudgingly eats the whole baby squid thing that Johnny and Fujisaki are both insisting is very tasty. Maybe eating babies like this is the key to the whole living fossil thing after all.

"Delicious," Griffin states, and eats his with professional zeal.

"SO. Yeah. I've got this group of do…boys," Gustavo repeats, while down below, Johnny's debut American project shakes his bon bon like he's made of Shakira. "And you know, since we're all about world markets now, obviously, I thought maybe we could help each other out, lower the tariffs, you know… work together."

"Hmmm," Johnny murmurs, thoughtful. "it would be nice if we could have an English song that Akanishi-kun didn't…" he pauses here, to wince, "write the lyrics to himself." He motions to the stage with a sort of weariness.

Gustavo blinks. "Wait that's _English_?" he asks, before he can stop himself.

Johnny and Fujisaki both give him identical fossilized looks.

"UH. GREAT. HE SOUNDS PRETTY GREAT," Gustavo hastens to add, before stuffing another baby squid into his mouth. "MMMM."

"In exchange, you can bring your American boys into Tokyo," Johnny agrees. "But I think the cannibal chips deal will be better for my kansai group and the body pillows will do for KAT-TUN."

Gustavo moves to protest. Johnny holds up a hand in a more polite, Japanese version of the SHUT UP hand. Gustavo's mouth snaps shut.

"Your boys may have the incontinence medication."

Griffin grins around his tentacles. "Great, it's done then. Gustavo, start writing a song for Mr. Akanishi." Pause. Smile. "Please use as few Rs and Ls as possible."

"Sure, no pro…"

Down in front of the stage, there is something like a gasp, an explosion, and the very decidedly _girlish shriek_ of one surprised Japanese idol.

When Gustavo looks, Carlos is clearly on the stage.

He shoves a few more baby squid into his mouth to keep from screaming.

* * *

Forty minutes later, after the small pyrotechnics fire has been put out and everyone has been safely evacuated from the Club Nokia, Carlos stands in front of a gaggle of bored-looking local reporters and boldly declares that no man is afraid of a little old effects fire when he has his trusty helmet and a heart full of love.

The reporters give him a weird look. "You do know that he's a guy, right?"

Carlos gives _them_ a weird look. "Yeah I know that _now_. Keep up."

More silence.

Someone hastens to fill the silence. "So, Mr. Akanishi must have been very grateful to you for your quick thinking."

Carlos sighs dreamily. "I sure hope so. I couldn't understand his Japanese though."

Then, "He was speaking English."

Carlos laughs. "Wow people around here sure don't know what English sounds like," he chuckles, and then poses for a few more pictures when the reporters decide to give up on letting him talk anymore.

"I still don't understand what happened," Logan mutters to himself, and Kendall looks about the same as they stand off to the side watching Carlos get his front page news. That's what happens when they spend time in dark crowded places, constantly getting hit in the head by things like Carlos or Kelly.

"Danger of the hip-scarf," James explains to his two deficient friends reasonably. "The swish factor is plus five on the visual dynamism meter but you don't want them near special effects because of the tassels. A button up around the waist is a good compromise if you've got to have some swish though."

Logan and Kendall give him twin looks of _did you get hit in the head lots too_?

James just smiles indulgently at them and crosses his arms, because they are so very young and thus cannot possibly understand yet. "One day," he says, fondly, "when you're both grown, I'll explain the world of accessories to you. But you aren't ready yet."

Logan and Kendall do skeptical things with their eyebrows.

James stares dreamily off into the Los Angeles night.

* * *

Meanwhile, the sort-of world famous Japanese idol Akanishi Jin sits in his backstage dressing room, picking at the slightly charred remains of his hip-scarf. He is frazzled but none the worse for wear thanks to a daring front row guest who had leapt onto stage the minute he'd been ignited and rolled them on the ground.

He is grateful, as the reporters had stated, but he thinks he's a little bit affronted to.

"I think that American kid _groped _me." He adjusts his pants and wonders if he should be worried.

* * *

The following night, Carlos calls after Jin's last show and asks Jin if he likes enchiladas.

Jin's response is, "How did you get this number?"

Carlos laughs. "I don't understand Japanese, silly."

Jin hangs up.

The relationship between Japan and America has always been strange and magical like that.

**END**


End file.
